The proposed research investigates the perseverance of initial self-perceptions and social perceptions in the face of subsequent evidence which challenges or even wholly negates the "evidence" on which the initial impressions were based. The proposed research program includes investigations of perseverance of initial impressions in various "debriefing" paradigms, where subsequent information logically and fully negates the evidence upon which initial impressions were based and the cognitive processes underlying such impression perseverance and research on perseverance processes in individuals' adherence to non-conservative prediction schemata in evaluating correlational relationships among variables. These studies attempt to investigate directly those processes presumed to produce perseverance; including (a) the selective or biased processing of potential evidence including relevant "past" "concurrent", and "future" information, and (b) the detection or postulation of causal schemata or antecedent consequent linkages, which buttress and support initial impressions. The studies are directed, in addition, towards a theoretical integration of research on impression perseverance with research on the prevalence of non-conservative or non-optimal strategies in intuitive prediction. Finally, the proposed studies investigate the social relevance of perseverance phenomena and techniques for overcoming perseverance in natural settings where persistence of initial judgments or impressions would be personally maladaptive or socially pernicious.